Sphalerite Sphere

Description

Sphalerite, also known as zinc blende and black-jack, is a zinc sulfide mineral that crystallizes in the form of masses, botryoidal, cubes, tetrahedral crystals, and dodecahedral crystals. Its most commonly silver and grey, but can also be seen as red, black, yellow, brown, green, and colorless. Sphalerite was discovered in 1847 by E.F. Glocker and was named after the Greek word meaning “treacherous”. Like most minerals during this time period, crystals that looked similar were just called under the same name. Sphalerite got its name from it constantly being confused with Galena. Its very common to find Sphalerite formed with a variety of minerals such as Fluorite, Pyrite, Galena, Dolomite, Quartz, and Calcite. Sphalerite is a common mineral that can be found all over the world, with the best specimens coming out of Mexico, Morocco, Switzerland and Franklin, New Jersey.

Sphalerite is the most important ore when it comes to extracting Zinc. Around 95% of all Zinc we use today is extracted from Sphalerite ore, making this mineral highly sought after in today’s society.

Zodiac: Gemini
Planet: Earth